Which Politicians are Co-Sponsoring of the H.R.1044 IT Immigration Bill?

Executive Summary

• There is very little coverage of which politicians are supporting further enlarging the H1-B program.
• We analyze the politicians that are c0-sponsoring the bill.

Introduction

There is an immigration bill referred to as H.R.1044. This bill is close to impossible to determine what the bill will do by reading the bill. This is intended so that the public cannot know what the bill will do. However, the lobbyist firms most certainly understand what the bill does, and in most cases, it is the lobbyists that write the bills.

The lobbyists, which are the shadow government in the US, then explain or misexplain the bill to those that vote on it. It is intensely relevant to the lobbyists that any bill that they write be incomprehensible to the population. This way the bills are encoded so that any critics of these bills will be confused when they read the bill. This is explained in the following quotation on how Obamacare was written.

We took the most complex health care system…and made it 10 times more complex. Why did Obama’s team choose to go this route? One explanation is suggested by the infamous remarks of Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who was videotaped telling an academic conference in 2013 that the law was deliberately “written in a tortured way” with a “lack of transparency” that was meant to confuse evaluators and thus get it past tte clueless and bewildered public. – Listen Liberal

Those Politicians That Either Sponsored or Co-sponsored the Bill

The following table shows which politicians sponsored or co-sponsored recent bills that expanded the H1-B program.

The bill’s full names are as follows.

• H.R. 1044: Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019
• S.2344: Immigration Innovation Act of 2018
• H.R.1303: H1B and L1 Visa Reform Act of 2017
• H.R. 392: Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2017

Each one of these bills had lobbying from companies and groups like the US Chamber of Commerce — which are merely lobbying groups funded by major companies. See the list of the entities that lobbied for H.R.1044 in the article Why Are 47 Entities Lobbying in Favor of the H.R.1044 IT Immigration Bill?

And all of the bills had no lobbying and zero input from domestic workers. The bills were also not covered in the US media except in the most cursory manner. When it comes to bills, it appears that the elected representatives only interact with companies and lobbyists that pay to visit with them — which brings up the question of what is the purpose of holding elections in the first place.

The system is evident in that only companies, and foreign workers should have any input into the IT immigration policy.

The views of domestic workers are not valued and not discussed.

Everyone on this list should be considered anti-domestic IT worker. Even well known progressive-leaning politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Tulsi Gabbard are shown co-sponsoring H1-B expansion bills. If there is one thing most of the elective officials can agree on — it is labor exploitation.

Now…No US Political Party Represents Workers

At one point in US history, Democrats were the party of labor, and Republicans were the party of the corporations and the well off. However, when reviewing the sponsors and co-sponsors of these H1-B expanding bills, there seems to be little difference between the two parties.

This is a story well explained in the book Listen Liberal. But for several decades Democrats have been far more comfortable spending time with Wall Street and in the Hamptons that are talking to working people. Once the labor unions were killed in the US, the Democrats aggressively turned their back on workers and went for the same funding sources as Republicans. 

If you are a worker in the US, you have no party that you can vote for that will look out for your interests versus employers. Candidates like Bernie Sanders that support workers are thoroughly reviled by the Democrat establishment. This came through the e-mails that were provided by Wikileaks that told us all kinds of disgusting things about the DNC.

Establishment Democrats prefer to associate with big-money donors and to support policies that damage workers. This has been the policy of Democrats since at least Clinton and going back to Carter who deregulated the trucking industry, turning a once well-paid profession that led to a middle-class life to a poorly paid profession with a deficient quality of working conditions.

A significant issue with the H1-B program is that there is little discussion about the program. Therefore, it is not framed as an anti-domestic worker bill.

The Media Coverage of H1-B Expanding Bills

The following is a typical article that is a paid placement in Forbes titled Recent Changes To The H1B Visa Program And What Is Coming In 2019 and which – naturally – encourages support for H.R.1044. Mr Semotuik would have paid to have this article placed in Forbes and as a Chinese construction firm owns Forbes as we cover in the article Can You Trust IDC and Their Now China Based Owners? And has stopped editing its content or even paying for writers, they will let anyone rent out their space for the right price.

The first thing to realize is that the author Andy J. Semotuik is an immigration attorney. That means, of course, that the more IT immigrants that come into the country, the more money he makes. And of course, as an attorney, he also has a lot of experience arguing falsely, a talent his uses in this article.

Let us observe from quotes from this article.

Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies were founded by first or second-generation immigrants and no doubt, many were former H1-B visa holders.

Semotuik seems to imply that immigrants are more innovative than non-immigrants. Secondly, by extending the definition to “second-generation immigrants” Semotuik expand the number of Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants. Note to Semotuik. Second-generation people are not immigrants — see definition of who is and who is not an immigrant. How about companies started by people who are third, fourth or fifth generation immigrants? As is not immigrants at all?

According to a recent report, U.S. tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Intel are among the top 10 employers of approved H-1B applicants.

True.

And if they had not been able to hire these H1-B applicants, those jobs and opportunities would have gone to domestic workers. Furthermore, these companies, that have more money than God was able to pay less for these workers, and these workers are owned by these companies as the last thing these workers want to do is go back to their own country. The H1-B program is a form of control over workers that any company would love to impose over domestic workers — if only it weren’t illegal.

That means that the benefits of the US economy in this situation were given to non-Americans over Americans.

Curiously, Semotuik does not observe this point. This might be because Semotuik makes no money on US workers (who unfortunately already have the right to work in the US), but Semotuik does make money on H1-B workers.

 U.S. educators have established without doubt that the entry of foreign-born scientists and engineers remains an unmatched source of “strength and vitality” for the country’s tech industry.

The strength and vitality fo the tech industry seems firmly based upon lower-paid workers who are controlled by the H1-B program. I worked with a consulting firm that had 100% H1-B labor. Cognizant, Wipro, TATA, and Infosys are primarily Indian companies whose employees composition has nothing to do with the rest of the country. This is sleazy firms that damage the companies that hire them. Is this the “strength and vitality” that Semotuik is referring to? Would Google and Facebook’s “strength and vitality” be sapped if they had to hire these employees in their home country? Why is it necessary for US domestic workers to be always at threat of replacement by Indian workers for these companies to maintain their “strength and vitality.” Finally, do we need to hear from an attorney, who likely has no other technology understanding that opening Word documents and answering e-mail as to what is necessary for technology vitality?

A loss of foreign employees in the tech sector could result in considerable competition from overseas companies. Because graduates from American colleges would help foreign companies compete against U.S. firms.

This is curious, because what is the definition of “loss” of foreign employees in the tech sector exactly? All of these companies have offices in multiple countries — how do companies lose the opportunities to hire these people simply if they cannot immigrate to the US. No law restricts companies from hiring foreign workers in their home country. H1-B is about people coming in from overseas to take jobs that would typically go to Americans. Jobs that Americans have the citizen first right to receive, and that companies should be training them to do if there is something they want to be done that is not within their experience to do.

Foreign companies could not outbid US firms if those employees were hired overseas.

Everyone knows that the US multinationals get first dibs, and then those lower on the hiring preference chain goto the Indian companies. Semotuik falsely sets up a construct whereby US-based companies only hire in the US. Semotuik seems to now know how these companies hire or that they all have giant offices in India.

For one thing, securing a work visa for foreign nationals accomplished in the math and engineering fields fit for high tech has become more difficult under the “Buy America, Hire American” executive order President Trump signed in April of last year. The policy directs the Department of Homeland Security to issue H-1B visas to only the most-skilled foreigners or highest-paid beneficiaries.

That is, to issue H1-Bs to those that meet the criteria of the H1-B program?

Recall that the original intent of the H1-B program was to only allow for “the most skilled foreigners.” Is was never supposed to be for the type of skill levels that have been flowing into the country through the H1-B program. We have recent college graduates asking if we (Brightwork) can sponsor them. There are armies of Indian people currently working in the US that come nowhere near meeting the definition of “high skilled.”

According to an NFAP source, “Employers report the time lost due to the increase in denials and Requests for Evidence has cost millions of dollars in project delays and contract penalties, while aiding competitors that operate exclusively outside the United States.”

And who is the NFAP?

Here is a screenshot of their website.

And this what they say about themselves.

The National Foundation for American Policy is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, non-partisan research organization focused on immigration, international trade and other issues related to globalization and the economy. Collectively, the organization’s research has been cited more than 100 times in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.

The NFAP is a fake entity that has a website with almost no website volume. They don’t declare their funding, or even how they support themselves.

So I will do it for them — they are supported by companies that want to hire more H1-B workers. And they are hiding this fact. The fact that they can trick the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post into using quotes from them is a sad testament to how to fall US media has sunk. But each of these outlets is aligned with wealthy interests (with the Washington Post being owned by Jeff Bezos, so yes, Amazon would like more H1-B labourers. Poor Jeff Bezos was only worth $130 B before his divorce, and he needs more H1-Bs to reclaim the $40 B he had to give to his wife.)

They intend to create articles without performing any research that can be used by people like Semotuik and designed to trick people who don’t verify sources. Here is a quote from Stuart Anderson, from the NFAP — in another paid placement in Forbes in a Forbes titled, USCIS Documents Reveal The Sources Of Trump H-1B Visa Restrictions.

Critics say the USCIS documents show the agency is not applying the law but coming up with ways around the law. “The documents released by USCIS reveal the way the agency has shifted its focus in these adjudications, creating more obstacles for U.S. businesses to hire and retain the talent they need,” said AILA President Marketa Lindt.

The evidence indicates USCIS has increased the regulatory burden on businesses and made U.S. companies less competitive if they need either high-skilled foreign nationals or the services they provide.

That is curious because it is quite evident that the companies that are bringing over H1-B workers don’t qualify as sufficiently high skilled to meet the definition of the program.

So this is what Forbes is now, a place where monied interests pretend that they are writing articles out of “interest” which are designed to push the interests of monied interests without any disclosure of these interests or any fact-checking, where domestic workers are entirely left out of the conversation.

The following quotation supports this.

Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University who has been looking at the H-1B visa program for years says this the first time since the program began 30 years ago that the government is actually enforcing standards.

Hira pointed to a 2015 scandal in which Southern Cal Edison’s American IT workers were laid off and asked to train H-1B visa employees who took their jobs as an example of how the program is in need of reform.

“The H-1B program is rife with abuse and exploitation, but prior administrations – both GOP and Democratic – essentially rubber stamped petitions,” he said. “I’m sure employers don’t like the increased scrutiny but that doesn’t mean the government is doing anything wrong.” – San Diego Union Tribune

Yes…the first time since the H1-B program was passed that any standards are being enforced. And the companies are screaming bloody murder, and feel the need to pay Chinese based Forbes to air their issues with complying with the law through proxies like NFAP.

Let us take stock of where we are at this point in Semotuik’s article.

We have an immigration attorney writing an article our of his own financial bias that he paid to have carried in Forbes that is now referring to a front organization funded by big money H1-B companies who like the lower pay and high degree of control over H1-B workers and using this front organization’s findings as evidence to support H1-B expansion.

Now with that background, let us look at the quote again.

According to an NFAP source, “Employers report the time lost due to the increase in denials and Requests for Evidence has cost millions of dollars in project delays and contract penalties, while aiding competitors that operate exclusively outside the United States.”

Really?

Well, the H1-B program costs domestic workers millions of dollars in lost wages, but yes, this is little concern to Semotuik. Lost wages of domestic workers don’t come out of Semotuik’s pocket. The only thing Semotuik is concerned with is more H1-B workers coming into the country — because this is how he makes his money.

Secondly, “millions” of dollars of cost is a rather puny number. I come from a world of $500 million projects write-offs, such as SAP’s failure at Lidl KPS Continues to Keep Promote HANA for Retail for Lidl After Failure. There are companies all over the US being ripped off by Deloitte or Infosys or SAP for billions of dollars.

So this estimate of loss is quite unimpressive. And the entity being quoted, NFAP has no research background, is funded by H1-B employers and also barely exists as a known entity.

Semotuik continues.

Then on November 19th, 2018 the U.S. Department of Labor began requiring that employers of H-1B applicants use a new Labor Condition Application form (LCA), ETA 9035. Critics claim the new form is designed to elicit internal information from employers and increase government pressure upon H-1B employed companies, with the intended possibility of negative attention from the press. The new labor conditions could deter tech companies from hiring skilled graduates abroad lest they fork out too much in annual wages, and could compel them to “hire American” in line with Trump’s new order.

What Semotuik is complaining about here is a form that has several questions, but two that stand out are the following that I took from the form are:

Wages: The employer shall pay nonimmigrant workers at least the prevailing wage or the employer’s actual wage, whichever is higher, and pay for non-productive time. The employer shall offer nonimmigrant workers benefits and eligibility for benefits provided as compensation for services on the same basis as the employer offers to U.S. workers. The employer shall not make deductions to recoup a business expense(s) of the employer including attorney fees and other costs connected to the performance of H-1B, H-1B1, or E-3 program functions which are required to be performed by the employer. This includes expenses related to the preparation and filing of this LCA and related visa petition information. 20 CFR 655.731; – Labor Condition Application form (LCA), ETA 9035

This clause exists because many H1-B employers were pulling these costs from their H1-B employees! This is an essential quality check on the H1-B program, and therefore, Semotuik opposes it.

(2) Working Conditions: The employer shall provide working conditions for nonimmigrants which will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed. The employer’s obligation regarding working conditions shall extend for the duration of the validity period of the certified LCA or the period during which the worker(s) working pursuant to this LCA is employed by the employer, whichever is longer. 20 CFR 655.732; – Labor Condition Application form (LCA), ETA 9035

This translates to the immigrant workers cannot be used to bring down the working conditions of the domestic workers.

Again, this is something that Semotuik considers a problem?

If he thinks it is a problem he should say so as he thinks so — the use of the introduction “critics claim” is a weasly way of introducing the criticism without directly associating with it. If he agrees with these critics, he should say so. If he disagrees with these critics, he should also say so. By using the introduction “critics claim” he can introduce a point he wants to make, in an unsourced fashion, but without taking responsibility for the point.

Who Are the Critics?

Could it be these critics are those companies that have to fill out this form?

I ask because it is difficult to see who else would oppose this quality test. For example, there were many critics of abolishing slavery — and the most strident critics of abolition, particularly among slave owners. So if I stated “critics claim abolishing slavery will lead to bad outcomes” it is essential to declare “who” is saying this. That might lead to “why” they are saying it.

Let us review Semotuik’s complaint against the use of this form.

The new labor conditions could deter tech companies from hiring skilled graduates abroad lest they fork out too much in annual wages, and could compel them to “hire American” in line with Trump’s new order.

How would this form deter tech companies from hiring H1-Bs?

Well, if an employer is taking H1-B costs out of the H1-B candidate’s wages, then this would deter them. Secondly, if the employer using the H1-B program to reduce the labor conditions of domestic workers, this could also deter companies from hiring H1-B workers. However, in neither circumstance should these companies be hiring H1-B workers if they are doing these things.

Something to note, Indians decrease the working conditions at all the IT companies I have witnessed, and one reason is that they discriminate against domestic workers. And that is only one of many negative repercussions for domestic workers. Wait one second…

Ding Ding Ding!

Semotuik gets our prestigious Golden Pinocchio Award for stating that the essential quality check on the H1-B program is onerous and a terrible injustice to H1-B employers. 

Semotuik continues..

For example, they accounted for 82 per cent of H-1B visas in 2016. Indian workers specifically are known to specialize in IT-related jobs, helping fill the gaps in the tech industry.

Fake Gaps

How does Semotuik know if Indian workers fill in gaps? Does this come from his nonexistent experience working technology? When he has a problem figuring out how is e-mail works and has to be told to hit the “refresh” button on his browser, is this what he imagines is the issue in the technology sector. I have worked with some of the highest-paid software patent attorneys, only to find out that they thought applications sat on a data warehouse. Therefore, it is humorous to listen to attorneys, who again are usually challenged by their iPads to make declarative statements about technology.

The US has a very high number of skilled domestic workers. There can always be said to be a “gap” that needs to be filled. But previously companies to provide training to their employees. Now training is very rarely offered, and employers expect even the newest skills to be immediately available in the market. For example, because SAP lies to customers so much about how commonly their products are used, I receive requests for skills that don’t exist in the market. For example, with the application S/4HANA, SAP claims several implementations that are hugely inflated, which means the skills are greatly inflated.

We are currently in the middle of a massive bubble in AI/data science/machine learning, with projects being sold based on pretenses. IBM has been massively exaggerating their ability to add value with AI/data science/machine learning. After failing in their own internal AI project as we cover in the article How IBM is Distracting from the Watson Failure to Sell More AI, they are still happy to sell and fail on AI projects. A fact they are currently trying to explain to many customers as we cover in the article How Many AI Projects Will Fail Due to a Lack of Data?

So yes, all of this dishonesty leads to a “gap” as we cover in the article How Real is the Data Science Gap?

In the corporate-controlled media, a “gap” is whatever a company says it is. There is no questioning of the gap, the degree to which companies could provide training, whether the difference is real or based on some sales initiated bubble, etc. Gaps are easy to create if every gap can be used to justify bringing in more compliant Indian workers to work under an H1-B for ten years or more, “gaps” will begin appearing amazingly quickly. If the assumption is that every employee has years of experience in every new technology before the technology has even become broadly used — once again, “gaps” will magically appear. I notice gaps in IT management all the time. I track and record stupid IT decisions that continually scratch my head at how bad they are.

Could we bring in people from the Netherlands to replace most of the CIOs and IT directors in the country? Because we have serious gaps (real gaps, not fake gaps) in our IT decision making.

Big Money in Replacing US Workers with H1-B

There is big money to be had in helping to lobby for more and frequent replacement of US workers by foreign workers. The following quotation explains this.

McAuliffe (D), Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham, former Michigan senator Spencer Abraham (R), Gover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (R), have made millions consulting for foreign governments, investors and visa seekers. Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D-NY)– side with the CEOs of Disney, Intel, Cisco, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. New Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and liberal billionaire hedge fund mogul George Soros all support the Big Tech, open borders agenda. Revolving door operatives on both the Left and Right. President Barack Obama and the Senate’s so called Gang of Eight — Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), Sen Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen Marco Rubio. – Sold Out 

Conclusion

Overall, Semotuik’s idiotic and manipulative article that is only intended to get him immigrant legal business was read over 360,000 times according to the Forbes counter on the article. Throughout the article, Semotuik spends exactly zero effort considering the side of domestic workers in this debate. Everything is about either what Indian immigrants want, what corporations want, and what — immigration attorneys wish to. And this is par for the course in articles about the H1-B program. Entities mostly write them with a financial interest, and people who have never worked in the IT sector and know next to nothing about technology.

We often have people reach out to ask what they can do to reduce Indian immigration into IT. Even without any more immigration from India, domestic workers face significant discrimination by Indians as we cover in the article How Indian IT Workers Discriminate Against Non-Indian Workers. However, the more Indians that immigrate to the US, the worse the discrimination will become. But at least a starting point for domestic workers is to reach out to the representatives on this list and contact them to tell them that you disapprove of both the H1-B program and any expansion of the program. Another question to ask is if any of these representatives have concern for workers, why do they continue to pass anti-domestic IT legislation like the bills listed in this article.

This is an excellent video on H1-B abuse that you won’t find explained in Forbes. 

References

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2019/01/02/recent-changes-to-the-h1b-visa-program-and-what-is-coming-in-2019/#4c0c4b4a4a81

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2019-08-17/guest-worker-visas-are-being-denied-at-record-rates

*https://www.amazon.com/Sold-Out-Billionaires-Bipartisan-Crapweasels/dp/1501115944/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/09/19/uscis-documents-reveal-the-sources-of-trump-h-1b-visa-restrictions/#255edb6f2760

https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/pdf/ETA_Form_9035.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/billlobs.php?id=hr1044-116